M E L I S S A

She was some sort of being that reality had forgotten to touch. Far from godly, far from angelic, but also far from the harsh hand that every other human had been shaped by. The last thing you could ever do was tell how she was feeling. Behind her ethereal smile on dew-drop lips no one could reach her mystic mind.

She was feeling a high that everyone knows at some point in their life. The sort you force yourself to attain when you know you’re about to leave something you have complete control over. She’d reached it only moments earlier, but she was the only one aware of her state. Yes, only she could explain the almost painful high she was feeling over the new start she would make. And no one else could see it.

They saw her eyes glint, but that was usual. They were always shining in some manner, whether through some devilish scheme she was making on the fly or from tears she was laughing onto her cheeks. You’ve never seen bright eyes until you’ve seen her’s - that’s what her friends would say. It doesn’t matter that they’re brown and deep as dark itself. They shine in an almost unreal manner.

Her eyes were just like her. They held the secrets to the untouched places of the world. Like she, they were free from the fingertips of humanity that trapped so many people. They hadn’t been dulled, nor would they ever. They were the sort of eyes that saw right through you. The sort of eyes that you couldn’t stand to look at for more than a second for fear you’d discover things about yourself that even you hadn’t known. Everyone knew about them. But no one spoke of them. Saying the truth aloud would make it all the more real, and therefore their fears and anxieties all the more present.

Perhaps the only telltale sign was the curve of her lips as she smiled at the sky. The mouth that so often grinned at the universe was wider than usual. It was open, full of laughter and hope and teeth that almost never saw the light of day. Although, I suppose they still hadn’t, as it was dark out when she was smiling.

People were lucky if they saw this smile. However, most people didn’t consider themselves unlucky. They didn’t know it existed in the first pace. But those who did found themselves drawn to it in an addictive way they couldn’t explain. Somehow they lived to see it flash on her face once more. They lived to be the one to cause it.

But no one caused it when it rested on her face for so long that evening. No one but she herself. She held the key to her own smile, and no one else could turn the lock like she did.

She was a faerie among mortals. Probably created from some devious scheme her former self had concocted in previous lives. She was the keystone of all her past selves - the self they had all longed to be without knowing it. But they had created it all the same, out of dreams and breath and bits of home, prayed over for centuries to every god that would ever exist. Not created for a better self, but as a form of remembrance.

It didn’t matter what you believed, she was proof there was a cycle to life that many disputed. She had always been. Maybe she didn’t quite know it herself, but she had at one point in time.

She flung herself into the damp dirt and allowed the cold to seep into her bones. It must have felt good, because she allowed another of her rare smiles. She was a stark difference to everyone else, being clothed in shorts and a t-shirt while everyone else huddled in their hoodies and jeans. She didn’t mind the temperature. That must have been another improvement all her past selves had strived for.

She fancied the idea of diving into the pond to embrace the water, but stopped only to enjoy the stillness of the near-divine feeling it produced. She thought for a moment that perhaps she was an astral being. Why not, if the water could reflect the heavens so sharply? Couldn’t she, too, be one with the expansive night sky that smiled heavily down at her?

Perhaps she was. And if not, perhaps she would be. She could tear herself down from her position as keystone of all her past selves, replacing it with who she would be in the future. And why couldn’t she be a star? Her mind burned brightly enough to become one itself.

Soon a crown of willow branches was in the place of honor, gracing her head like a crown to a king. Except she was neither queen nor king. She simply was. She ruled no kingdom, no peoples, no country. She didn’t enforce her ways or her thoughts. But that didn’t stop the cosmos from bowing at her weathered feet. It did so without her asking, and she accepted it with the grace that no one else possessed; with the wisdom no soul had ever known.

She lead the way, practically flying down the path. She probably felt as though she was flying. There was no doubt she made believe she was. Everyone laughed nervously after her, hurrying their steps to try to keep pace without seeming too forcibly rushed. They had no chance of maintaining composure if they were to actually try to reach her - the wind was at her feet. It helped her along, making the way for her steps and feeling generous enough to block theirs.

She danced in her willow crown, and suddenly had a stick in her hands, which she allowed to bang out music of its own on the old metal fence. The sound broke the night louder than their whispers ever had, and she laughed joyfully. The sky welcomed the noise, and she smiled once more.

All at once it was obvious. In her fay-like state, she was freer than they’d ever seen her. She knew something they didn’t know. Something they would never know, that even she herself didn’t know she contained.

And suddenly, I had no doubts: She was unattainable, and acceptance of that fact was the closest I, and everyone else, would ever reach in this lifetime alone.

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